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ON THE 



UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS 



OF 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 



BY 



C M INGLEBY, LL.D. 






\ Reprinted from the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature. .] 



ON THE UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS OF 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 

By C. M. Ingleby, LL.D. 

[From the Transactions of the Eoyal Society of Literature, Yol. IX., new series.] 
(Read June 12th, 1867.) 

If a well known proverb concerning good intentions 
were a rule without an exception, it would go hard 
with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. His was a life of 
schemes partly elaborated and abandoned, of projects 
suggested and never realized, of resolutions taken 
and never fulfilled. Such is the naked truth ; with 
the culpability of such conduct in his case I do not 
meddle. There are known facts in his life which go 
far to convince me that the fault I have indicated was 
rather due to physical infirmity than to moral pravity. 
But, nevertheless, the example of a man whose 
powers were great, whose acquirements were large, 
whose aspirations were sublime, indicating the out- 
lines of a complete philosophy of nature, and dedica- 
ting the greater part of his life to the special studies 
which could alone train him for achieving the work, 
and after all, leaving, as the only fruit of his travail, 
the slightest possible aperpu of his subject, is not one 
to admire, and can only be edifying to his successors 
as a terrible and deplorable warning. 

A 



& ON THE UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS 

Such is the reflection natural to a reader of his 
published works. If it be unjust to the memory of 
this good man, the fact remains to be shown by the 
publication of some work of his which has slumbered 
in portly manuscript on the shelf of some friend or 
relative of the author. But such a possibility is put 
forth as a last resort, and almost cm desespoir ; for it 
seems in the highest degree unlikely that any large 
work of Coleridge's, the publication of which could 
augment his fame, and clear his name from the charge 
of unfaithfulness to his own genius, should have re- 
mained all these years a private possession. Such 
an event as the discovery of Coleridge's lost work, the 
work of his life, seems more than we can hope for ; 
but, as a means of removing all doubt on the matter, 
it is eminently desirable that the public should know 
distinctly what works Coleridge is reported to have 
written which have never seen the light, and what 
works actually exist in manuscript in certain assigned 
depositories. 

This is the question which has harassed me ever 
since I took up the study of the life and works of 
Coleridge. I believe I have left no stone unturned 
to discover the clue to the missing treasure ; and 
I do not expect that any material addition will be 
made to the facts I have ascertained respecting the 
Coleridge manuscripts. Accordingly, I venture to lay 
the result, insignificant as it is, before the Koyal Society 
of Literature. The name of Samuel Taylor Coleridge 
has been closely associated with this Society almost 
from the era of its birth. It was founded in 1823; 
and in the following year Coleridge was elected a 
Royal Associate of the Society. From this time till the 



OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 6 

death of George IV., he received from its funds a pen- 
sion of £100 a year. It must, I should think, be a 
source of gratification to every member of the Boyal 
Society of Literature to reflect that, in this instance, 
at least, its royal bounty was enjoyed by a man who, 
from his ability and worth pre-eminently deserved it, 
and who from the unremitting pressure of disease truly 
needed it. At the same time we must all regret that 
the grant was discontinued at a period when Coleridge 
most needed it. 

The facts I am about to bring before you this 
evening have, in truth, a considerable bearing on 
Coleridge's moral character. They who uphold that 
character against his detractors maintain that he was 
singularly candid, sincere, and truthful. Allowing the 
fact of his numerous misstatements, both as to the 
matter and as to the originality of his own writings, 
the upholders allege that those very misstatements 
manifest a constitutional infirmity, being the mistakes 
of a man of abstraction and distraction, and not at all 
those of a man of simulation or dissimulation. As 
to what he had actually composed, it is affirmed that 
his statements, if a little coloured by his peculiar 
temperament, are, in the main, trustworthy ; that if 
he has stated that he had written a certain essay, 
we may be sure that the essay was written ; though 
it may turn out that he took an exaggerated estimate 
of its value, or that a portion only of the work was 
actually written out ; that he did not, like Pascal, take 
to himself the credit of a vast work, of which he had 
written but a few pages ; and that if a work was merely 
a project or design, Coleridge spoke of it as such — pos- 
sibly raising expectation unduly as to the likelihood of 

a 2 



4 ON THE UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS 

the design being realized, but still sincerely intending 
to realize it, health and leisure permitting. Thus, he 
says ('Biographia Literaria,'ii.p. 296,1847),"Noprivate 
feeling, that affected myself only, should prevent me 
from publishing the same, (i.e. ' my own Life,') for write 
it I assuredly shall, should life and leisure be granted 
me," etc. Here was a determination to compose his 
autobiography; he had, doubtless, a thoroughly sincere 
intention of doing so, but, so far as we know, he never 
accomplished it. When, therefore, we find him treat- 
ing an essay on the imagination as a fait accompli, as 
having been submitted to the judgment of a friend, 
and by the advice of that friend withdrawn from 
the 'Biographia Literaria,' are we bound to believe 
that he had written it % or is this belief to be in- 
validated by the very curious circumstances of that 
withdrawal, which, for all one sees to the contrary, 
may admit of explanation without impeaching Cole- 
ridge's veracity % Those circumstances will be detailed 
in the course of this paper, and it will be for you, 
rather tha,n for me, to draw a correct inference from 
them. 

The principal of Coleridge's printed works were pub- 
lished in his lifetime. But I think an almost equal 
quantity of manuscript material remained unpublished 
at his death. It was then that his representatives gave 
to the world a series of notes, fragments, and finished 
treatises, which he had prepared for the press, or left 
in such a condition as rendered them not unfit for im- 
mediate publication. The most important of these was 
the 'Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit, 1 which was first 
published in 1840 ; and from that time have appeared 
at intervals a series of volumes consisting either 



OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. O 

of fragments left in manuscript by Coleridge, or of 
writings which had been published in his lifetime. 
By dint of editing and commenting, by virtne of 
preliminary dissertations, introductions, appendices, 
and treatises by Coleridge's nephew and daughter, and 
by Messrs. Green and Marsh, the works of Coleridge 
(exclusive of the four volumes of ' Literary Remains,' 
and the two volumes of ' Letters,' etc.), were made to 
extend to about twenty volumes in 12mo, which with 
two or three exceptions 1 were published by the late 
Mr. Pickering ; and these were reinforced by three 
additional volumes, published by the late Mr. Moxon, 
who had stood sponsor to the ' Letters, Conversations, 
and Recollections of Samuel Taylor Coleridge' in 1836. 
The publication of the last supplementary volume 
by Mr. Moxon was, to all appearance, a stale to catch 
purchasers ; possibly an unintentional source of decep- 
tion. The preface, referring to the ' Literary Remains,' 
and to no other publication bearing Coleridge's name, 
apprises the reader of the fact, that a considerable por- 
tion of this volume is a reprint of old matter. The 
natural inference is, that it is a reprint of matter con- 
tained in the ' Literary Remains ' only. The reader 
who possesses, let me suppose, the volume containing 
the 'Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit,' edition 1840 or 
1849, is thus not so much warned as put off his guard. 
If he is eager, as I was, to complete his set of Cole- 
ridge's theological writings, he purchases, as I did, 
this concluding volume, and not till he has carefully 

1 The ' Treatise on Method' was published in the ' Encyclopaedia 
Metropolitana ; and Dr. Seth B. Watson (who had been Coleridge's 
amanuensis), edited the ' Theory of Life ' for Mr. Churchill. The 
' Table Talk ' was published by Mr. Murray. 



b ON THE UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS 

examined it, does he discover that he has now the 
uncoveted privilege of reading a dozen and a half of 
Coleridge's articles and notes, in two editions, which 
do not differ from one another in a single important 
feature — save, indeed, in the index, which as to those 
notes collectively called ' OmnianaJ only serves to veil 
the identity between the matter of the one volume and 
the matter of the other. 

Coleridge's published writings are only volumin- 
ous in one sense ; they have been unconscionably 
beaten out into twenty-seven volumes, while they 
might have been comfortably housed in six. Now, 
there are two ways of giving his works these biblio- 
thecal dimensions ; the one has been adopted by his 
representatives, and is such as I have described ; the 
other is to publish the more important manuscripts 
which still remain unpublished. Many will probably 
now hear for the first time, that a considerable 
number of works, and works of a considerable size 
and importance by Coleridge, exist in manuscript 
in private collections. The British public would 
probably, have long remained in ignorance of the 
fact, if I had not, by a somewhat discourteous 
process I own, extorted from his executor a public 
statement of the Coleridgean treasures which were 
then in his safe keeping. As long as a decent silence 
could be maintained, silence was maintained. The 
national catechist yclept ' Notes and Queries,' and 
nicknamed, from his occasional petty assaults, Gnats 
rend Queries, plied note and query in vain for years. 
What is everybody's business is nobody's. If a cor- 
poration lacks the wherewithal to receive physical cas- 
tigation, much more is the general personage who is 



OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 7 

appealed to as " the fortunate possessor of Coleridge's 
manuscripts " deaf, dumb, and blind. The course 
adopted by the querists was futile ; no catechumen 
ever presented himself, and none was ever forced into 
court. When I took up the subject I repeated the 
old folly. At length, discovering the name and person 
of Coleridge's principal amanuensis, who turned out 
to be his executor also, I published a " note " ad- 
dressed to him by name. This appeal was equally 
disregarded. Then, and not till then, did I resort to 
the knout; one stroke was sufficient, and the late 
respected Joseph Henry Green, with anything but 
" smiling face and courteous grace," stepped into the 
witness-box. He complained, as he had the right to 
do, of the " inconsiderate, not to say coarse, attack" 
I had made on him ; but despite that complaint he 
proceeded to make a clean breast of the matter in 
hand. I obtained some of the information of which 
I was then in quest. I learned that certain manu- 
scripts of Coleridge's were in Mr. Green's possession, 
and the reason why they had not been and were not 
to be published: of all this presently. I subse- 
quently augmented and perfected my facts by con- 
sulting the Eev. Derwent Coleridge (the poet's last 
surviving son), and the widow of Mr. Stutfield who, 
like Messrs. Green and Watson, had been Coleridge's 
pupil and amanuensis. 

Coleridge transfigured all he touched. If the story 
of Maria Scheming in the second volume of ' The 
Friend ' be an exception, it is so in appearance only, 
viz. because he did not touch it; it is ill-written 
indeed, but, to my mind, bears no trace of Cole- 
ridge's style. The merest sticks of humanity loom 



8 ON THE UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS 

heroic to his charmed imagination. Alexander Ball 
and Andrew Bell were great men as Coleridge portrayed 
them ; and the monster Bowyer, of whom De Quincey 
records that he wrote an heroic line, 2 where fourteen 
vowels went to twenty-nine consonants, seven of which 
came in sequence (viz. t, h,d,s, t,t,h),was in Coleridge's 
mind a genius of great poetic sensibility . In return for 
this generous usage, nearly all who have essayed the 
treatment of Coleridge's life, genius, or works, have 
foully bewrayed him. De Quincey, who by a timely and 
munificent gift, and subsequently by a pension be- 
stowed on the poet with superfluous delicacy, had 
proved himself to be one of Coleridge's best friends, 
slandered and libelled him in the same breath with the 
most extravagant laudation of his genius. Cottle and 
Gillman, his generous patron and his no less generous 
physician, wrote his life ; the former indirectly re- 
flecting on his character, the latter on his common 
sense. Mr. Alsop put forth his "Letters and Conversa- 
tions " with somewhat of the air of a wild-beast show- 
man ; and perhaps worst of all, Green compiled what 
he sincerely believed to be a digest of his philosophy. 
De Quincey proposed to supersede the proverb, " as 
dead as a door nail," by another, "as dead as Gillman's 
Coleridge." Doubtless, Gillman's unfinished volume, 3 
unfinished because unfellowed, is about the deadest 
piece of biography afloat (for afloat it still is, I believe, 
though it has no sale) ; a third biography, written by 

a " 'Twas thou that smooth'd'st the rough-rugg'd bed of pain." 
" ' Smooth'd'st ! ' Would the teeth of a crocodile not splinter under that 
word ? It seems to us as if Mr. Bowyer's verses ought to be boiled 
before they can be read." — De Quincey, (Black's ed. xi. 94) 

3 Shakespeare's ' unfinished eye ' in the ' Merchant of Venice' has 
been excepted to. I wonder why P If it is unfellowed it is unfinished. 



OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLE1UDGE. 9 

the Rev. Derwent Coleridge, is soon to be at press, 
which, it is hoped, will in a measure supply the want 
which its predecessors only helped to create, and 
served to make manifest. But dead as Gillman's 
book is, Green's ' Spiritual Philosophy,' 2 vols., 1866, 
is, in De Quincey's phrase, deader; that is, dead in a far 
profounder sense. As Coleridge used to say of other 
works, the parts cohere by synartesis, not by synthesis — 
in fact, Green's book mainly consists of extracts from 
other men's writings, tacked together by a few flimsy 
notes. It is no more a Spiritual Philosophy than the 
fragments of an Ichthyosaurus cemented together is 
an animal, nay it is less so, for Green's book has not 
even the evidences of a past vitality. The student, 
on reading it, is disposed to say to it, ' Coleridge I 
know, and Schelling I know ; but who are you T I 
am sorry that I cannot here respect the good old 
maxim, Be mortuis nil nisi bonum ; for like Othello, 

" I do perceive here a divided dutj'.'' 

I dare not speak of Green as well as I could wish, 
because I can do so only by speaking of Coleridge 
worse than he deserves. In short, they who would 
master the philosophy of Coleridge will do wisely to 
study it in Coleridge's works, and not in the digest of 
his disciple. 

Green's ' Spiritual Philosophy ' was in every sense 
still-born. It was a still-birth of his brain, and it was 
a still-birth of Messrs. Macmillan's press. If, as I 
trust, that prudent firm are guaranteed against loss, 
they have the same substantial consolation as the 
sturdy blacksmith in the story, whose wife was always 
boxing his ears, and who replied to some friends, who 
wondered why he submitted so patiently — "Why, 



10 ON THE UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS 

where's the harm 1 It amuses her and it doesn't hurt 
me ! " I doubt not Green's book served to entertain 
his active mind in his declining years ; and I shall be 
much surprised if it turns out that the publishers 
undertook it at their own risk. 

I dare say it has seemed to you that I have dwelt 
with unnecessary length on this posthumous work of 
Coleridge's loving friend and disciple, but the sequel 
will show you that I have not said a word too much. It 
was for the sake of writing this work, that Mr. Green, 
by his own confession ( 4 Notes and Queries,' May 27, 
1854), excused himself from undertaking the editorial 
labour of preparing any of Coleridge's unpublished 
manuscripts for the press. He writes, in answer to 
one of my applications, " I have devoted more than 
the leisure of a life to a work in which I hope to 
present the philosophic views of my ' great master' 
in a systematic form of unity — in a form which may 
best concentrate to a focus and principle of unity the 
light diffused in his writings, and which may again 
reflect it in all departments of human knowledge, so 
that truths may become intelligible in the one light 
of divine truth." To this I replied that — 

" I, for one, must enter my protest against the 
publication of Mr. Green's book being made the 
pretext of depriving the public of their right (may I 
say ?) to the perusal of such works as do exist in 
manuscript, finished or unfinished." 

The protest, of course, was unheeded. Mr. Green 
pursued his labours, and died, I believe before his own 
work had received its final touches. We now know 
how stupendous was the mistake he committed ; and in 
comparison with the veriest fragment of Coleridge's 



OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 11 

how barren is that creation for which he allowed some 
of his great master's manuscripts to remain unedited. 

I feel sure that even now we should have known 
nothing whatever of these manuscripts but for Mr. 
Alsop. Of Coleridge's most intimate friends and 
well intentioned bewrayers — friends from whom he 
had reason enough to pray for safety, 1 refer to 
Hazlitt and De Quincey, the traducers ; to Cottle and 
Gillman, the twaddlers ; to the late Joseph Henry 
Green and Mr. Thomas Alsop — the last, who is the 
least culpable, alone survives. I suppose I may, in his 
case, act on the maxim, Be vivis nil nisi verum. He was 
a member of the Stock Exchange, and I believe he 
was both self-educated, and educated somewhat late 
in life ; if so, it is the more honourable to him that he 
was able to fit himself for the friendship of Coleridge, 
Lamb, Landor, Wordsworth, and a score of the most 
eminent writers and conversationalists of that day. 
In several respects he was a remarkable man ; he 
was, like his friends and fellow-workers, Robert 
Owen of Lanark, Richard Oastler, and Feargus 
O'Connor, a practical philanthropist and economist. 
I believe I met him once in company with Robert 
Owen, but I had no opportunity of making his ac- 
quaintance. He is, however, described to me as a 
man of quiet, unostentatious, and gentlemanly demean- 
our, but of somewhat peculiar and eccentric habits. 

Twice has Mr. Alsop been brought before the 
public; on the one occasion, he achieved publicity 
by the publication of Coleridge's 4 Letters and Conver- 
sations ;' on the other occasion he had publicity thrust 
upon him, to wit, in connection with the Rue Lepel- 
letier plot. The latter case had a very ugly look for 



12 ON THE UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS 

him ; but it is quite certain that he had no compli- 
city in the plot against the life of Napoleon III. 
Even if he were, as has been stated, the agent for the 
supply of the hand-grenades, there is no reason to 
believe that he knew of their final destination any 
more than the house that executed the order. My 
own impression is, that Mr. Alsop was imposed upon 
by the chief conspirators, and induced to be their 
agent under colour of assisting an Italian insurrection. 
Of the charge on which he was sought to be arraigned 
I hold him innocent ; for the lesser and literary 
offence of bad editing he has been found guilty, and 
was lampooned by the Rev. John Moultrie in the 
following sonnet : — 

" A gibbering ape that leads an elephant ; 
A dwarf cleform'd, the presence heralding 
Of potent wizard, or the elfin king ; 
Caliban, deigning sage advice to grant 
To mighty Prosper in some hour of want ; 
Sweet bully Bottom, while the fairies sing, 
Braying applause to their rich carolling, 
But feebly typify thy flippant cant, 
Stupid defamer, who for many a year 
With earth's profoundest teacher wast at school, 
And, notwithstanding, dost at last appear 
A brainless, heartless, faithless, hopeless fool. 
Come, take thy cap and bells, and throne thee here, 
Conspicuous on the dunce's loftiest stool." 

When Mr. Moultrie penned the last couplet he 
did not perceive that he was conferring on himself 
the honours of the 6 Dunciad,' for he could not invite 
Mr. Alsop to share his throne (" Come take thy cap 
and bells, and throne thee heee;" i.e. where I the 
speaker am), unless the poet had already himself 
assumed that dignity. I confess it rejoices me to 



OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 13 

observe this slip of composition, because it does 
look very like the work of the lame but persistent 
avenger, who tracks the slanderer to earth, and drops 
in on him there most unexpectedly. 

The offence which not unnaturally stirred the 
mortal ire in Mr. Moultrie's anima coelestis, lay in 
this : that Mr. Alsop was, like Robert Owen, a socialist 
and secularist. He saw Coleridge's religious faith 
through a strongly refracting medium ; hence it is 
that he strove to make it appear that Coleridge was 
not an orthodox Christian. I am not going to discuss 
that question now, but I must say, that view was not 
wholly without warrant : for Coleridge, even before 
his re-conversion to the Catholic Church of England 
(the only wide-portaled communion in this world), 
and while he was a Unitarian preacher, held a philo- 
sophic dogma concerning the Blessed Trinity, which 
he seems to have borrowed from Pythagoras and 
Plato. The best refutation of Mr. Moultrie's slander 
is ' The Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of 
S. T. Coleridge.' While I allow that it might have been 
better edited, I must confess I find it a most delight- 
ful work, and I read and re-read it with ever increas- 
ing enjoyment: one reason why these volumes are 
delightful is, that they are permeated either by the 
genius of the master or by the devotion of the dis- 
ciple, testifying to his thorough-going admiration of 
the great intellect, and his love of the great heart. 
No man ought to be called a fool who is susceptible 
of such feelings; or take it the other way, let the 
writer be a fool— and so much the more wonderful 
is the book. On the whole, I hold that Mr. Alsop 
has done his work with more than average ability ; 



14 ON THE UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS 

though it is somewhat marred by the editor's egotism, 
as well as by his incommunity with Coleridge's in- 
tellect. But egotistic and crotchety as he is, he is not 
an opinionated or intolerant writer. For example, 
take the following sentence from the address to his 
children : — 

" Cherished and sustained by his extraordinary 
intellect, and still more by the love and sympathy 
in which ... he always superabounded, and the 
fulness of which seemed to arise from its overflowing, 
I have been able to arrive at settled and definite con- 
clusions upon all matters to which I have heretofore 
attached value or interest. When I say that I have 
arrived at settled conclusions, you will not for a 
moment believe that my opinions can or ought to be 
received by others of a totally different experience 
as truths for their minds, still less that matters which 
depend upon individual experience and tempera- 
ment can be permanent truths for all time. You 
will find, and this it is which I wish to impress 
upon your minds, that a spirit of pure and intense 
humanity* a spirit of love and kindness, to which no- 
thing is too large, for which nothing is too small, will 
be to you, as it has been to me, its own exceeding 
great reward." 

From Mr. Alsop's two volumes I have obtained 
clues to several extant manuscripts of Coleridge, and 
also direct information as to what works Coleridge 
had contemplated composing, and as to what he had 
actually dictated to his amanuenses. By these means, 
and also by the aid of some passages in his published 

4 " Religious zeal," says Lord Chatham, " has been called divinity, 
but remember that the only true divinity is humanity." 






OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 15 

works, I have been enabled to determine that about 
the period 1820-3, after he had become domesticated 
with the Gillmans, Messrs. Green, Stutneld, and 
Watson were in the habit of attending at Gillman's 
house (now, alas ! modernized by the destruction of 
the old dormers, and the construction of a hideous new 
front to the third floor), and acting as Coleridge's 
scribes ; and that he was then engaged upon the com- 
position of three capital works, viz. : — 

1. A complete constructive philosophy of the 
universe, to be called Logosophia, said to be the 
great work of his life; 2. A treatise on Logic, in 
three books ; and 3. A treatise on the ideal basis of 
Christianity, to be called The Assertion of Religion. 

Besides, I have ascertained that there is still in 
existence a shorthand report of a course of lectures 
by Coleridge on The History of Philosophy. From 
private sources I have learned that there still remain 
in manuscript two or more fragments, which may 
represent one book of the Logic, and a collection of 
notes, chiefly on religion, bearing the quaint and 
modest name of Fly-catchers. The Eev. Derwent 
Coleridge has suggested to me that Mr. Green may 
have used, as raw material, a good deal of the work 
dictated to him by Coleridge, and which was then in 
his possession, in the text of his 'Spiritual Philosophy.' 
Of course, neither he nor I (not having collated Col- 
ridge's manuscripts in Green's handwriting, with 
Green's posthumous work), can say positively that 
this has been done : but it is likely ; and those who 
know Green's peculiarities can have no doubt that, if 
he did so use Coleridge's manuscript, he re-wrote all 
the passages which he borrowed. 



16 ON THE UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS 

I shall now proceed to say something on each of 
these manuscript works; my general plan being to 
give the illustrated extracts first, and my own remarks 
afterwards. 

I. — LOGOSOPHIA. 

This work is first introduced to our notice in the 
first volume of the ' Biographia Literaria' (1847, 
vol. i. p. 267), where Coleridge says: — 

" In the third treatise of my ( Logosophia/ announced at 
the end of the volume, I shall give (Deo volente) the demon- 
strations and constructions of the Dynamic Philosophy 
scientifically arranged. It is, according to my conviction, 
no other than the system of Pythagoras and of Plato revised 
and purified from impure mixtures. Doctrina per tot manus 
tradita tandem in vcuppam desiit !" 

These remarks are followed by the ten theses, said 
(by Professor Ferrier) to be mainly taken from 
Schelling. 

We are, as you observe, referred by Coleridge to the 
end of the volume (i. e. vol. i.), for an announcement of 
the great work. There, sure enough, we find an an- 
nouncement, but in an unexpected form. It seems 
this great work contains a number of treatises, one of 
which is, 'On the Imagination, or Esemplastic Faculty.' 
Now, chapter xii. of the ' Biographia Literaria' is 
nothing more nor less than the vestibule to chapter 
xiii. ; it is merely an introduction to the succeeding 
chapter, ' On the Imagination or Esemplastic Faculty.' 

What act 
That roars so loud and thunders in the index ? 

Why, it is next to nothing at all ; in Coleridge's own 
expression, "A magnificent portal leads to a mud 



OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 17 

hovel ; you ascend a marble staircase, and arrive at 
garret." Chapter xiii., so far as concerns the promised 
dissertation on the Imagination, is a blank. The reason 
why it is a blank forms the actual subject of the chap- 
ter. It is a reproduction, mutatis mutandis, of the oft- 
repeated chapter on snakes in Iceland or in Norway, 
as given in the works of Horrebow and Pontoppidan ; 
the last simply states the fact in so many words, 
that there are no snakes in the island, but Horrebow 
swells out his chapter to as many lines by giving the 
reason why there are no snakes in Norway. 6 So 
Coleridge tells us that the treatise on the Imagina- 
tion is deferred ; and the reason for the omission is 
thus given : — 

" Thus far had the work been transcribed for the press 
[the few preceding pages of the chapter being mere adapta- 
tions from Schelling and Kant — CM. I.], when I received the 
following letter from a friend, whose practical judgment I have 
had ample reason to estimate and revere, and whose taste 
and sensibility preclude all the excuses which my self-love 
might possibly have prompted me to set up in plea against 
the decision of advisers of equal good sense, but with less 
tact and feeling : — 

<e ' Dear 0., — You ask my opinion concerning your chapter 
on the Imagination, both as to the impressions it made on 
myself, and as to those which I think it will make on the 
public, i. e. that part of the public who, from the title of 
the work, and from its forming a sort of introduction to a 
volume of poems, are likely to constitute the great majority 
of your readers. . . .[ 

The writer then states the effect of the missing* 
chapter (1) on his understanding, (2) on his feelings, 
ending thus : — 

5 Horrebow's 'Natural History '; Norway, 1758, fol., p. 91: and 
Pontoppidan's ' Iceland,' 1755, fol., 2nd part, p. 34. 

B 



18 ON THE UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS 

" l Yet, after all, I could not but repeat the lines which you 
had quoted from a manuscript poem of your own in the 
' Friend/ and applied to a work of Mr. Wordsworth, though 
with a few words altered : — 

' An orphic tale indeed, 
A tale obscure of high and passionate thoughts 
To a strange music chanted ! ' 

Be assured, however, that I look forward anxiously to your 
great book on the Consteuctive Philosophy which you have 
promised and announced, and that I will do my best to 
understand it. Only I will not promise to descend into the 
dark cave of Trophonius with you, there to rub my own eyes, 
in order to make the sparks and figured flashes which I am 
required to see. 

" ' So much for myself. But for the public I do not hesi- 
tate a moment in advising and urging you to withdraw the 
Chapter from the present work, and to reserve it for your 
announced treatises on the 'Logos/ or Communicative 
Intellect in Man and Deity. First, because imperfectly as I 
understand the present chapter, I see clearly that you have 
done too much, and yet not enough. You have been obliged 
to omit many links, from the necessity of compression, that 
what remains looks (if I may recur to my former illustra- 
tions) like the fragments of the winding steps of an old 
ruined tower. Secondly, a still stronger argument (at least, 
one that I am sure will be more forcible with you) is, that 
your readers will have both right and reason to complain 
of you. This chapter, which cannot, when it is printed, 
amount to so little as an hundred pages, will, of necessity, 
greatly increase the expense of the work ; and every reader 
who, like myself, is neither prepared nor perhaps calculated 
for the study of so abstruse a subject so abstrusely treated, 
will, as I have before hinted, be almost entitled to accuse 
you of a sort of imposition on him ... In that greater work 
to which you have devoted so many years, and study so in- 
tense and various, it will be in its proper place. Your pro- 
spectus will have described and announced both its contents 
and their nature ; and if any persons purchase it who feel 



OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 19 

no interest in the subject of which it treats, they will have 
themselves only to blame . . . All success attend you, for if 
hard thinking and hard reading are merits, you have 

deserved it. 

' Your affectionate, etc' 

" In consequence of this very judicious letter, which pro- 
duced complete conviction on my mind, I shall content my- 
self for the present with stating the main result of the 
chapter, which I have reserved for that future publication, a 
detailed prospectus of which the reader will find at the close 
of the second volume. " 

The main result of so elaborate and abstruse a dis- 
sertation is then summed up in twenty-three lines ; 
but the reader will search in vain for the prospectus 
of the work : it is iiot at the close of the second 
volume, nor anywhere else in the ' Biographia Lite- 
raria' (see ed. 1847, vol. i. p. 295-7). 

From all this apparatus of friendly advice, the 
detractors of Coleridge see nothing but a flimsy 
pretence for the omission of a dissertation which was 
either a mere translation from Schelling, or Avhich it 
was not then in Coleridge's power to produce. I give 
no opinion on this, simply recording my conviction 
that the letter in all its parts bears the impress of 
Coleridge's mind and style. It may have been written 
by Coleridge, and yet have been an honest expression 
of a judicious friend's advice. Anyhow, the omission 
both of the inaugurated essay and of the promised 
prospectus is curious, and the whole affair has a very 
awkward complexion. 

The terms we have seen applied to the Logosophia 
may give us a faint notion of the nature and scope 
of the work. It is called 'The Constructive Phi- 
losophy.' Mr. Green, in the only interview I ever had 

b2 



20 ON THE UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS 

with him, told me that the volume he possessed con- 
tained an announcement of the doctrine, that me- 
chanical force is a manifestation of life, so that dead 
matter, considered as the external material of whose 
organization life is a property, is a non-entity ; the 
spiritual reality being as much required to account 
for dead matter, as rightly considered, it is required 
to account for organization : which is the catholic 
doctrine of the 'Theory of Life;' and the Rev. Der- 
went Coleridge tells me that Mr. Green described that 
volume to him as an attempt to construct the world 
a priori. 

From all this, one might suppose that Coleridge's 
work was the counterpart of Schelling's ' Natur- 
philosophie' or Oken's ' Physico-philosophie.' Indeed, 
I had made up my mind that it was so, till I was con- 
fronted with a forgotten passage which Coleridge 
added in manuscript to Mr. Alsop's copy of 'The 
Friend' (after the word vacuum, led. 1818, vol. iii. p. 
263), and a modification of which is found in the 
edition of 1844, vol. iii. p. 214. 

" From Zeno, the Eleatrice, to Spinoza, and from Spinoza 
to Schelling, Oken, and the German ' Natur-philosophen ' of 
the present day, the result has been, and ever must be, Pan- 
theism, under some one or other of its modes or disguises," 

which he sternly discountenances. 6 

Hence it may be safely inferred that Coleridge's 
Logosophia is not identical with the great systems of 
the Germans. It is also called a set of ' Treatises on 
the Logos or Communicative Intellect in Man and 
Deity,' a title which seems to savour more of mysticism 
than of science. The third treatise was to contain 

6 ' Letters, Conversations, and Recollections,' vol. i. p. 30. 



OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 21 

the ■ Dynamic Philosophy ;' another, the dissertation 
on the 'Imagination or Esemplastic Faculty;' and pro- 
bably another on ' Ideas.' It is hard to believe that 
this great work was, after all, a gorgeous dream begot 
between opium and Schelling ; and it is satisfactory 
to know that, at least, one large volume of it is ex- 
tant. We read in the ' Letters,' vol. i. p. 7, under the 
date of December 2, 1818, of — 

"the almost insurmountable difficulties which the anxieties 
of to-day oppose to my completion of the great work, the 
form and materials of which it has been the employment of 
the best and most genial hours of the last twenty years to 
mature and collect." 

Again, under the date January, 1821 : — 

" In addition to these — of my Great Work, to the pre- 
paration of which more than twenty years of my life have 
been devoted, and on which my hopes of extensive and per- 
manent utility, of fame, in the noblest sense of the word, 
mainly rest — that, by which I might, 

' As now by thee, by all the good be known, 

When this weak frame lies moulder'd in the grave, 

Which self-surviving I might call my own, 

Which Folly cannot mar, nor Hate deprave, — 

The incense of those powers, which, risen in flame, 
Might make me dear to Him from whom they came,' 

" Of this work, to which all my other writings (unless 
I except my poems, and these 1 can exclude in part only) 
are introductory and preparative, and the result of which (if 
the premises be, as I, with the most tranquil assurance am 
convinced they are — insubvertible, the deductions legitimate, 
and the conclusions commensurate, and only commensurate 
with both), must finally be a revolution of all that has been 
called philosophy or metaphysics in England and France, 
since the era of the commencing predominance of the me- 
chanical system at the restoration of our second Charles ; 
and with this the present fashionable views, not only of reli- 



22 ON THE UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS 

gion, morals and politics, but even of the modern physics 
and physiology. (You will not blame the earnestness of my 
expressions nor the high importance which I attach to this 
work ; for how with less noble objects, and less faith in their 
attainment, could I stand acquitted of folly, and abuse of 
time, talents, and learning, in a labour of three-fourths of 
my intellectual life ?) Of this work something more than a 
volume has been dictated by me, so as to exist fit for the 
press, to my friend and enlightened pupil, Mr. Green/'' 7 

Here is Coleridge's own statement ; not put forth to 
throw dust in the eyes of the public, but com- 
municated to a private friend, that by January, 1821, 
" something more than a volume" was finished for 
the press, and existed at that date in the handwriting 
of Mr. Green. We also know that in its author's 
judgment it was the most important of all his works, 
the fruit of twenty years' genial and learned toil, 
and that upon it rested his hope of permanent fame. 
We cannot, then, be far wrong in pronouncing it, 
beforehand, the work which par excellence, of all he 
ever wrote, deserves publication. Moreover, for want 
of that part of it which concerns the Imagination or 
Esemplastic Faculty, the first volume of the ' Bio- 
graphia Literaria' is, as we have seen, incomplete, as 
hardly any other work of repute is, there being an 
awful hiatus of nearly all chapter xiii., " the imperial 
theme," to which the preceding long chapter was but 
the " prologue." Surely such an overture as that was 
never before written to an anticlimax. But granting 
the judiciousness of the omission of that essay on the 
grounds stated, those grounds are no longer reasons ; 
for if the volume of which Coleridge writes com- 

7 ' Letters. Conversations and Recollections of Coleridge,' 1836, 
vol. i. 154-6 (cf. ibid., vol. i. p. 161). 



OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 23 

prises the wanting dissertation, and is extant, it pro- 
bably discusses the Imagination at length, without 
regard to the need of compression, and its publication 
as a supplement to vol. i. of the ' Biographia Literaria' 
would now be no imposition on the purchaser of the 
old work. 

Now what says Mr. Green to all this? He says, 

" Although in the material [sic] for the volumes there are 
introductions and intercalations on subjects of speculative 
interest^ such as to entitle them to appear in print; the main 
portion of the work is a philosophical cosmogony which I 
fear is scarcely adapted for scientific readers, or corresponds 
to the requirements of modern science. At all events, I do 
not hesitate to say that the completion of the whole would 
be requisite for the intelligibility of the part which exists in 
manuscript. Whatever may be, however, the opinion of 
others, I have decided, according to my own convictions of 
the issue, against the experiment." 8 

Now if the experiment referred to is that of trying 
whether any readers of the work could understand it 
as it is, surely that is their affair, and they may be 
left to puzzle it out, or give it up. If, however, the 
experiment is a commercial one only, that might have 
been a serious obstacle with Mr. Green, but for the 
fact that he had received and refused an offer to defray 
all the expenses of printing the work. All, then, I 
can gather from this miserable fudge is, that he would 
not part with the manuscript for another person to 
edit and see through the press, and he had not the 
disposition to do so himself; for, surely, all that talk 
about the necessity of completing the treatise before 
the volume in his possession saw the light could not 
have been seriously intended as a reason for with- 

8 ' Notes and Queries,' June 10, 1854. 



24 ON THE UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS 

holding it. He could not have seriously looked for- 
ward to Coleridge's return across the bourn called 
Anostum, in order to revisit the country of his mor- 
tality, and complete his great work ; as little could he 
seriously have thought it a condition precedent to 
publication that some one else should rewrite and 
complete what Coleridge had dictated to his ama- 
nuensis. I venture to take all that for pretext, the 
real reason being that Mr. Green had his own work to 
complete, and wanted some of Coleridge's materials 
to stuff it out. But if he did honestly believe it in- 
expedient to publish a fragmentary volume of Cole- 
ridge's great work, (1) because it was a fragment, and 
(2) because it did not meet the requirements of 
modern science, he must, to be consistent, have de- 
plored the republication in our day of Aristotle's 
' Physics,' Bacon's 4 Novum Organum,' and Newton's 
' Optics,' for all of these fall far short of those require- 
ments, and the first two are fragments only. 

II. — Logic. 

We first hear of this work in a letter from Cole- 
ridge to Mr. Alsop, under the date of September 24, 
1821 :— 

" I entertain some hope, too, that my Logic, which I could 
begin printing immediately if I could find a publisher 
willing to undertake it on equitable terms, might prove an 
exception to the general fate of my publications. " 9 

Again under the date of December 26, 1822, we 
read : — 

" There are two ways of giving you pleasure and comfort ; 

n 'Letters, Conversations, and Eecollections of Coleridge,' 1836, 
vol. ii p. 10 (ef. ibid.. «*ol. i. p. 141. and vol. ii. p. 77-8). 



OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 25 

would to God I could have made the one com/possible with 
the other, and have done both. The first, the having finished 
the Logic in its three main divisions, — as the Canon, or that 
which prescribes the rule and form of all conclusion or con- 
clusive reasoning ; second, as the Criterion, or that which 
teaches to distinguish truth from falsehood, containing all 
the sorts, forms, and sources of error, and means of deceiv- 
ing or being deceived; third, as the Organ, or positive 
instrument for discovering truth, together with the general 
introduction to the whole. The second was to come to town, 

and pass a week with you and Mrs. . The latter I 

could not have done, and yet have been able to send you the 
present good tidings, that with regard to the former we are 
in sight of land; that Mr. Stutfield will give three days in 
the week for the next fortnight, and that I have no doubt 
. . . that by the end of January the whole book will not 
only have been finished, for that I expect will be the case 
next Sunday fortnight, but ready for the press. In reality, 
I have now little else but to transcribe, and even this would 
in part only be necessary, but that, I must, of course, dictate 
the sentences to Mr. Stutfield and Mr. Watson ; and shall, 
therefore, avail myself of the opportunity for occasional cor- 
rection and improvement. When this is done, and can be 
offered as a whole to Murray or other publisher, I shall have 
the Logical Exercises, or the Logic exemplified and supplied 
in a critique on (1) Condillae; (2) Paley; (3) French Che- 
mistry and Philosophy, with other miscellaneous matters from 
the present fashions of the age, moral and political, ready to 
go to the press with by the time the other is printed off." 10 

There is a mystery to be cleared up concerning 
this work. On Mr. Stutfield's death his widow took 
charge of his papers, and at the time I write they 
are deposited at Tilbury's warehouse. But Mrs. 
Stutfield tells me that among them there is only one 

10 ' Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of Coleridge,' 1836, 
vol. ii. p. 150-2. 



26 ON THE UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS 

manuscript which had been dictated by Coleridge to 
Mr. Stutfield, and that is a logical manuscript " con- 
sisting of a few pages only." Where is the rest 1 
Is it credible that it never existed save in Cole- 
ridge's forgetive brain ] I can hardly believe that in 
the face of his express statements, that on December 
26th, 1822, there remained little else to be done in 
completion of the Logic, in its three parts of Canon, 
Criterion, and Organ, but transcription of what had 
been already written ; and that day being Saturday, 
that by the 15th day Coleridge expected the whole 
work to be finished. 

Mr. Green, in reply to my inquiry respecting this 
work, says: — 

"I apprehend it may be proved by reference to Mr. 
Stutfield's notes, the gentleman to whom it is said they were 
dictated, and who possesses the original copy, that the work 
never was finished. Of the three parts mentioned as the com- 
ponents of the work, the ' Criterion' and ' Organ' do not to 
my knowledge exist ; and with regard to the other parts of 
the manuscript, including the l Canon/ I believe that I have 
exercised a sound discretion in not publishing them in their 
present form and unfinished state/' 11 

Of course such a reply as this is little more than a 
subterfuge. What Mr. Green expected to happen to 
the manuscript to render it fit for publication it is 
hard to say. If he really looked forward to the pos- 
sibility, or even contemplated the desirability, of the 
work being hashed up to meet the market, he must 
have had much less reverence for Coleridge, and a 
much narrower view of the ends and aims of literature, 
than became the disciple and exponent of a great 
original genius. 

11 ' Notes and Queries,' June 10, 1854. 



OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 27 

III. — Assertion of Religion. 

We have four references to this work in Coleridge's 
letters, viz. August 8, 1820. 

" I at least am as well as I ever am, and my regular em- 
ployment in which Mr. Green is weekly my amanuensis, the 
work on the books of the Old and New Testaments, intro- 
duced by the assumptions and postulates required as the pre- 
conditions of a fair examination of Christianity as a scheme 
of doctrines, precepts, and histories, drawn or at least 
deducible from these books." u 

November 27, 1820:— 

" Besides this, I have latterly felt increasingly anxious to 
avail myself of every moment that ill health left me to get 
forward with my Logic and with my 'Assertion of Religion.'" 13 

September 24, 1821:— 

" I am now able to hope that I shall be capable of setting 
apart such a portion of my usable time to my greater work 
(in assertion of the ideal truths and a priori probability, and 
a posteriori internal and external evidence of the historic 
truth of the Christian religion), as to leave a sufficient por- 
tion for a not unprofitable series of articles for pecuniary 
supply." 14 

December 26, 1822 :— 

" And this, without interrupting the greater work on 
Religion, of which the first half, containing the Philosophy 
or Ideal Truth, possibility, and a priori probability of the 
articles of Christian Faith, was completed on Sunday last." 15 

This, in all probability, is the matter referred to in 

12 ' Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of Coleridge,' 1836, 
vol. i. p. 104 (cf. ibid., vol. i. p. 153). 

13 Ibid., vol. i. p. 141. 

14 ' Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of Coleridge,' 1836, 
vol. ii. p. 9. 15 Ibid., vol. ii. p. 152. 



28 ON THE UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS 

the following extracts. The first is from a work by 
Coleridge's daughter : — 

" Reason cannot oblige us to receive/' said Kant, " more 
than reason can prove. But what mere speculative reason 
cannot oblige us to receive, the moral and spiritual within us 
may. This is the doctrine of the f Aids to Reflection ; ' 
I believe that my father, in his latter years, added something 
to it on the subject of Ideas, which will appear, I trust, 
hereafter." 16 

The second is from Henry Nelson Coleridge's 'Pre- 
face to the Table Talk ' : — 

"And I have no doubt that had he lived to complete his 
great work c On Philosophy reconciled with Christian Reli- 
gion/ he would without scruple have used in that work any 
part or parts of his preliminary treatises, as their intrinsic 
fitness required/'' 17 

There seems some great difficulty here. It is by no 
means clear what this book was, nor how far it had 
progressed when it was finally suspended. Mr. Green 
was not able to throw any light on the question ; he 
writes, — "Of the alleged work on the Old and New 
Testaments, to be called ' The Assertion of Religion,' 
I have no knowledge." Yet, as we have seen, Cole- 
ridge's daughter and nephew knew of some such a 
fragment, and the former speaks of its publication as 
at least probable. I ought, however, to mention that 
there is some doubt in my mind whether both these 
allusions are not to a part of the Logosophia. 

16 Sara Coleridge's Introduction to the ' Biographia Literaria,' vol. i. 
p. cxxxviii. (Cf. the ' Friend,' vol. i. p. 240, vol. iii. p. 196, and ' Theory 
of Life,' p. 62.) 

v ' Specimens of the Table Talk of S. T. Coleridge,' 3rd ed. 1851, 
p. xxii. 



OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 29 

IV. — Lectures on the History of Philosophy. 

Under the date of December 2, 1818, Coleridge 
writes to Mr. Alsop concerning the success of these 
lectures, speaking of their delivery as a future event. 
Again, under the date of December 26, 1822, he 
writes : — 

" The publication of my Shakspeare and other similar lec- 
tures, sheet per sheet, in Blackwood, with the aid of Mr. 
Frere's shorthand copies, and those on the History of 
Philosophy in one volume, would nearly suffice." [i. e. for 
the purpose of a maintenance] . 18 

" The prospectus of these Lectures," says Mr. Alsop, " is 
so full of interest, and so well worthy of attention, that I 
subjoin it ; trusting that the lectures themselves will soon be 
furnished by, or under the auspices of Mr. Green, the most 
constant and the most assiduous of his disciples. 

" That gentleman will, I earnestly hope — and doubt not — 
see and feel the necessity of giving the whole of his great 
master's views, opinions, and anticipations ; not those alone 
in which he more entirely sympathizes, or those which may 
have more ready acceptance in the present time. He will 
not shrink from the great, the sacred duty he has volunta- 
rily undertaken, from any regards of prudence, still less from 
that most hopeless form of fastidiousness, the wish to con- 
ciliate," etc. 19 

Mr. Green did not see the matter at all from Mr. 
Alsop's point of view — nor from mine. He says the 
the work is in his possession. 

" It was presented to me," he continues, " by the late J. 
Hookham Frere, and consists of notes taken for him by an 

18 ' Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of Coleridge,' 1836, 
vol. ii. p. 152. (Cf. ibid., vol. i. p. 152.) 

19 'Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of Coleridge,' 1836, 
vol. ii. p. 218-19. 



30 ON THE UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS 

eminent shorthand writer, of the course of lectures delivered 
by Coleridge on that subject [the History of Philosophy]. 
Unfortunately however, these notes are wholly unfit for 
publication, as indeed may be inferred from the fact com- 
municated to me by Coleridge, that the person employed 
confessed that after the first lecture he was unable to follow 
the lecturer in consequence of becoming perplexed and de- 
layed by the novelty of the language, for which he was 
wholly unprepared by the ordinary exercise of his art. If 
this ' History of Philosophy ' is to be published in an intel- 
ligible form, it will require to be re-written, and I would 
willingly undertake the task, had I not in connection with 
Coleridge' s views, other and more pressing objects to ac- 
complish," 20 

to wit, his own " great work " aforesaid. 

The Rev. Derwent Coleridge tells me that Mr. 
Green owned to him that in these lectures were some 
valuable remarks on Spinoza. 

V. — Fly-catchers. 

Under this title are collected twenty-three mis- 
cellaneous notes by Coleridge. The majority of these 
are theological, and for the most part critical. The 
manuscript is in the possession of the Rev. Derwent 
Coleridge. He informs me that a few of the notes 
in this manuscript were published in the ' Literary 
Remains,' (vol. ii. or iii. I suppose). " To me," writes 
that gentleman, " they appear, however faulty in 
detail, to be animated by a spirit, and at times to 
reveal several principles, of extreme interest . . . 
The remainder is chiefly letters, journals, and other 
memoranda, juvenilia, and a few fragments of great 

-° 'Notes and Queries,' June 10, 1854. 



OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 31 

use towards the composition of a literary biography, 
but not otherwise available." 

He further tells me that on his sister's death he 
received all the papers that were in her possession 
when she died ; and that on Mr. Green's death he 
received all those papers on which he was assumed to 
have any claim, but none in Mr. Green's handwriting. 

Besides these rive works, there is little of Cole- 
ridge's in manuscript deserving mention, save, per- 
haps, 

VI. — Some Fragments on Logic, Grammar, etc. 

In the possession of his son ; and which may or 
may not be identical with No. III., probably not; and 

VII. — Some still Unpublished ' Marginalia.' 

De Quincey says in a note to his article on ' Cole- 
ridge and Opium-eating:' — 

" We ourselves had the honour of presenting to Mr. 
Coleridge Law's English version of Jacob [Behmen] — a 
set of huge quartos. Some months afterwards we saw this 
work lying open, and one volume, at least overflowing in 
parts, with the commentaries and other ' corollaries' of Cole- 
ridge. Whither has this work, and so many others scattered 
about with Coleridge's manuscript notes, vanished from the 
world?" 21 

Such a work should be sought for in the libraries 

21 This edition of Behmen is often cited as Law's Edition, but in 
truth Wm. Law never edited Behmen's works. The edition of 1764- 
1781 (4 vols. 4to) he had no hand in ; in fact, he died in 1761. Some 
diagrams, illustrative of Behmen's Theosophy were found among his 
papers after his death, and these were engraved and published with the 
edition in question ; hence the error. 



32 ON THE UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS 

of professed Theosophers ; the chief of whom is Mr. 
Christopher Walton, the editor of a thick volume on 
the subject of Behmen's speculations. There is also 
a copy of ' Ealeigh's History of the World,' with some 
of Coleridge's annotations, which came into my pos- 
session some years ago, and is now lying on the table. 
I communicated the notes without delay to ' Notes 
and Queries.' 

Besides these annotated works, there is a copy of 
Fleury's 'Ecclesiastical History,' 1727-1732 (English), 
the first volume of which has marginalia in Cole- 
ridge's hand. It is in the possession of Edward Eig- 
gall, Esq., of No. 141, Queen's Boad, Bayswater. 
Mr. Pickering, too, has a copy of the Eev. Joseph 
Eann's edition of ' Shakespeare,' 1786, in six volumes, 
of which vols, i., ii., v., and vi. have notes by Cole- 
ridge, some in pencil and some in ink. Many of the 
pencil notes have been cut through in binding, and 
are illegible. Some time ago Mr. Pickering sold a 
copy of Boerhaave's ' Method of Chymistry,' 4to, 
1727, with Coleridge's marginalia. I have not ascer- 
tained the name of the purchaser. 

As I said, the result of my inquiries, though closely 
pursued, is but insignificant. But small as it is, it is 
satisfactory to know what we have and what we ought 
to have of Coleridge's manuscript works, which have 
remained unedited and unpublished. 

Coleridge's will, dated September, 1829, authorizes 
his executor (the late Mr. Green), " if he should think 
it expedient, to publish any of the notes or writings 
made by him (Coleridge) in his books, or any other 
of his manuscripts or writings, or any letters which 
should thereafter be collected from or supplied by his 



OF SAMUEL TAYLOK COLERIDGE. 88 

friends or correspondents." So that in Mr. Green was 
vested an absolute discretion to publish or withhold 
from the press any of Coleridge's works. Now, that 
Mr. Green is dead, and one obstacle, at least, is re- 
moved, let us hope that those works will receive the 
tardy justice of publication. 1 make no question that 
these extant manuscripts need careful editing to lit 
them for publication ; but rough as some of the 
materials undoubtedly are, it is surely possible to give 
them some sort of arrangement without destroying 
their identity or originality. It is hard to conceive 
a worse case than that of Buckle's fragments on 
Queen Elizabeth ; and yet these were woven into an 
organic whole by means of intercalary sentences 
enclosed in square brackets. Probably, nothing so 
difficult of treatment as this will be found among 
Coleridge's remains; so that I hold the family of 
Coleridge wholly without excuse, if they do not make 
some attempt to issue, at least, the more important of 
his unpublished manuscripts. 



PRINTED BY J. E. TAYLOR AND CO., 
LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS. 



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